Margaret Kenyatta (mayor)

Margaret Wambui Kenyatta (16 February 1928 – 5 April 2017) was a Kenyan politician.

She was the daughter of the first President of Kenya, Jomo Kenyatta, and his wife Grace Wahu.

In 1929, when she was barely a year old, her father left for England to represent KCA in these discussions.

He returned home the following year but returned in 1931 to England and Russia for further studies.

With her father away, Margaret grew up and lived with her mother and her older brother Peter in their family home in Gichungo near Dagoretti Children's Centre in Nairobi.

As was the custom in those days, Margaret helped her mother in day to day chores of their home.

She was an obedient, extremely neat and a very inquisitive child who asked her mother many questions about her father and why he had left and gone to England.

Even before she started school, she had developed a sharp mind and had started to become aware of the colonial injustices of the time.

In those days, few children went to school early therefore Margaret only joined formal school at Ruthimitu Primary School when she was over ten years old.

She later attended the Church of Scotland Mission School at Thogoto, Kikuyu, where, true to her natural leadership skills, she became one of the prefects of the girls’ section.

Margaret passed the primary school leaving examinations with flying colours and the examination officials had a serious challenge over what to do with her and another girl, Joan Wambui Gitau, who had also passed well, for high school studies.

The dilemma was that there was no high school for African girls at the time.

However, due to their strong academic performance, the Principal of the then Alliance High School Kikuyu had no option but to accept the girls to join the school.

Margaret was therefore the first girl to enroll at Alliance in 1948 with admission number ‘1000’.

This number was given to her to distinguish her admission to the school as the first girl, since admission number ‘1’ had been given to her uncle James Muigai when he had joined the same school twenty years earlier.

Margaret and Joan became lasting role models to girls during their two years at Alliance.

This continued even after they went in different directions after sitting for the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Schools Examination in 1949 and passing well; Margaret going on to teach at the Kenya Teachers’ Training College at Githunguri, Kiambu, and Joan to study at Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda.

From 1949 to 1952, Margaret taught at the Kenya Teachers’ Training College at Githunguri, Kiambu, where her father had become the Principal in 1946 after returning from England.

It is noteworthy that Margaret taught without any salary.

She stopped teaching when the African Independent Schools were closed by the colonial government after a State of Emergency was declared in Kenya in 1952.

It was while teaching at Githunguri that Margaret's political consciousness was awakened because she was constantly in contact with those at the forefront of the freedom struggle.

She spent a lot of time with her father, who instilled in her the spirit of fighting for African rights, and made a decision to be part of the freedom struggle by supporting her father and those who were at the forefront of the freedom struggle.

When her father was arrested and jailed on 20 October 1952 after the declaration of the state of emergency, Margaret was the source of information for her father through the numerous personal letters that she wrote to him.

Because letters were censored, the content of the letters was mainly news of the family.

He also wrote her letters including stories of what was happening in Lokitaung to the Drum magazine, which supported Kenya's independence struggle at the time.

Margaret also visited her father in Maralal, which involved tiring and hazardous journeys on the back of a truck for several days.

During her father's trial in Kapenguria, she assisted the lawyers in preparing and signing the necessary legal documents.

She also arranged for him to obtain the vital vitamin tablets and medication for eczema he required as well as the necessary doctors to attend to his health during his detention.

While her father and elder brother Peter Muigai were in detention, the responsibility of providing for the families they left behind fell on her and she had to seek employment to provide for them.

Margaret came back to Nairobi to search for employment and stayed at House No. 27 of Kariokor Estate, from where she managed to make occasional visits to her mother and young son in Dagoretti despite the severe travel restrictions then in place in Nairobi.

Margaret managed to secure employment in various jobs between the years 1953 and 1960; as a telephone operator at the East Africa Bata Shoe Company, later as a junior accounts clerk, and also as a book binder in a publishing firm owned by the renowned Asian nationalist Mr. Ambu H. Patel, who supported the freedom movement.

Mr. Patel allowed her to travel several times to visit her father while he was in detention.

Margaret also joined and played an active role in a number of social welfare organisations dealing with women and general matters during this period.

While she was employed, she went by the name Margaret Kamau to conceal the fact that she was the daughter of Jomo Kenyatta due to the inherent dangers of an association with that name during the Emergency period.

She served as the mayor of Nairobi from 1970 to 1976 and as Kenya's Permanent Representative to the United Nations from 1976 to 1986.

She was thereafter appointed as a Commissioner with the Electoral Commission of Kenya from 1992 to 2002.

Margaret Kenyatta was born in Pumwani Maternity Hospital in the Kenyan capital Nairobi, to Jomo Kenyatta, a Kenyan politician who later became Kenya's first president, and his first wife Grace Wahu.

She was one of two children born to Kenyatta and Wahu, after elder brother Peter Muigai.

By the time Margaret was born, her father was already a political activist.

He was the Secretary General of the Kikuyu Central Association (KCA) that had been formed to fight for the return of African lands that had been forcefully taken by the colonialists.